I co-chair the Open Group project for defining the Cloud Governance framework. Fundamentally, the Cloud Governance framework builds upon The Open Group SOA Governance Framework and provides additional context for Cloud Governance in relation to other governance standards in the industry. We are with Cloud Governance today where we were with SOA Governance a few years back when The Open Group started on the SOA Governance framework project.

McKendrick goes on to say that the tools and methodologies built and stabilized over the past few years for SOA projects are seeing renewed life as enterprises move to the Cloud model. In McKendrick’s words, “it is just a matter of getting the word out.” That may be the case for the SOA governance market. But, is that so for Cloud Governance?

When it comes to Cloud Governance, it is more than just getting the word out. We must make progress in the following areas for Cloud Governance to become real:

Sustained adoption. Enterprises must continuously adopt cloud based services balancing it with outsourcing alternatives. This will give more visibility to the real-life use cases where Cloud Governance can be exercised to validate and refine the enabling set of governance models.

Framework Definition. Finally, Cloud Governance needs a standard framework to facilitate its adoption. Just like the SOA Governance Framework, the definition of a standard for the Cloud Governance Framework as well as the supporting reference models will pave the way for the consistent adoption of Cloud Governance.

Once these progressions are made, Cloud Governance will be positioned like SOA Governance—and it will then be just a “matter of getting the word out.”

HP Distinguished Technologist and Cloud Advisor, E.G.Nadhan has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry across the complete spectrum of selling, delivering and managing enterprise level solutions for HP customers. He is the founding co-chair for The Open Group SOCCI project and is also the founding co-chair for the Open Group Cloud Computing Governance project. Connect with Nadhan on: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Journey Blog.